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Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Integrity, Intelligence and Energy

Hey there,

I was doing some work today and decided that I needed a break, so where else but to go onto YouTube and waste some time. I watched a couple of Warren Buffet’s interviews (yeah I’m that much of a nerd, using study break time to watch interviews). He said one of his friends from Omaha said that when hiring people, he looks for 3 things: integrity, intelligence and energy. He said that if a person does not have the first two, the latter two would kill them because if they don’t have integrity, you want them to be dumb and lazy instead of smart and energetic. Being intelligent and having energy is not enough, integrity plays an important role in keeping you on the straight line.

He was talking to some Harvard MBA students, I think, and as the talk went on, he asked the students to look around the room at their colleagues. Identify one person that you would buy a 10% stake in their lives. If we had a choice of buying 10% of our colleague’s life for the rest of their life who will it be? Once you’ve identified that, write out their attributes that made you come to your decision. A lot of the time, it will not be because they are smart, or because they are a top scorer, it would most likely be because you can relate to them. Or you trust that they have what it takes to succeed. Make a list and strive to gain those attributes.

He said, Benjamin Graham did the same time back in the days. He identified people that he admired and that he wanted to be admired as well. So he identified what qualities made them admirable. What he found surprising was that those attributes are quite easily achieved.

Once you’re identified qualities that you like to have, make them a habit because in time, you’re realise that you’ll be the one who you want to own 10% in and the beauty of it is that you already own 100% of yourself.

After you’ve done that, identify somebody you would short sell 10% of their lives. Identify their attributes that made you come to that conclusion and avoid having those attributes.

Warren Buffet spent hours of his day learning how to invest and thoroughly analysing companies. His dedication and desire I’ll say is what 95% of the population do not have. Most people, like myself, would rather use our time on Facebook or YouTube.

So yeah, long story short, have integrity, be smart and energetic and strive to have good qualities so that you would love to invest in yourself.